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by gota 1692 days ago
This is inching close to the conclusion that mandatory expert panels are required for government to function.

But then you go back to the problem of "who determines who are the experts". Point in case, the anti-vaccine politicians dredge up the 1 out of a 1000 doctors that spouts whatever fits their narrative. Lots o people die gasping for air unnecessarily as a result...

And we have no idea how to begin to solve that problem while keeping a functional democracy, it seems

Sorry to bring in vaccines into the topic - it's just the clear parallel between these situations that I wanted to draw on.

Experts are what you want them to be
2 comments
tomc1985 1692 days ago
Huh? Calling up your local shipping exec for a meeting is most definitely not forming "expert panels"
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bluGill 1692 days ago
It might me. If they are just called at random things are fine. However if you do a little work you can figure out who will support whatever position you want.

A few months ago I listened to one "expert panel" called before congress about high speed trail. Most of the people didn't have any useful expertise on the subject. There was the union rep who considered anything good so long as it makes jobs - if they could dig and refill the same hole all day that would be good). There was the you are not listening to NIMBYs enough - without any acknowledgement on how much NIMBYs had been listened to. There were several people who define HSR so slow that Amtrak meets it.

I believe the above is typical of congressional hearings, though I don't have 4 hours to sit through them on a regular basis. (I had a lot of long compiling tasks to do that day)

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pessimizer 1692 days ago
Yes, it is. And can also result in decisions that benefit your local shipping exec over any other considerations. Informality in cases like this is just another way to say "completely avoids oversight. "
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dragonwriter 1692 days ago
> This is inching close to the conclusion that mandatory expert panels are required for government to function.

Notionally, one would think that's what the existing Harbor Commission is.

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